What do you think?
Selected Stories of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Stories depict the lives of women in late nineteenth-century New England, as sisters, friends, wives and individuals
- GenresFiction
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
611 books87 followersMary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, and attended Mount Holyoke College (then, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, for one year, from 1870–71. Freeman's parents were orthodox Congregationalists, causing her to have a very strict childhood.
Religious constraints play a key role in some of her works. She later finished her education at West Brattleboro Seminary. She passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont.
Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family and was quickly successful. Her best known work was written in the 1880s and 1890s while she lived in Randolph. She produced more than two dozen volumes of published short stories and novels. She is best known for two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887) and A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Her stories deal mostly with New England life and are among the best of their kind. Freeman is also remembered for her novel Pembroke (1894), and she contributed a notable chapter to the collaborative novel The Whole Family (1908). In 1902 she married Doctor Charles M. Freeman of Metuchen, New Jersey.
In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died in Metuchen and was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Religious constraints play a key role in some of her works. She later finished her education at West Brattleboro Seminary. She passed the greater part of her life in Massachusetts and Vermont.
Freeman began writing stories and verse for children while still a teenager to help support her family and was quickly successful. Her best known work was written in the 1880s and 1890s while she lived in Randolph. She produced more than two dozen volumes of published short stories and novels. She is best known for two collections of stories, A Humble Romance and Other Stories (1887) and A New England Nun and Other Stories (1891). Her stories deal mostly with New England life and are among the best of their kind. Freeman is also remembered for her novel Pembroke (1894), and she contributed a notable chapter to the collaborative novel The Whole Family (1908). In 1902 she married Doctor Charles M. Freeman of Metuchen, New Jersey.
In April 1926, Freeman became the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Medal for Distinction in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died in Metuchen and was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 18, 2020
In reading this collection, I made the happy discovery that at her best, Mary Wilkins Freeman makes the narrow, rather emotionally stunted lives of her mostly impoverished, mostly female, 19th century New England protagonists seem engrossing and important.
Marjorie Pryse, the editor of this selection, chose stories from two collections of short fiction published early in Wilkins'career: A Humble Romance and A New England Nun. In her introduction, Pryse takes issue with the conventional literary assessment of Wilkins and other, also female, "local color" authors, as representing a literary culture in a graceful decline (a "New England: Indian Summer " as Van Wyck Brooks phrases it). Rather Pryse suggests that the burgeoning of women writers telling women's stories at this time should be "a cause for celebration, not lament." I'm inclined to agree, but feel that Mary Wilkins Freeman's consistent focus on elderly, desperately poor women, who are clinging to their last few remaining trappings of dignity undercuts the argument a bit.
As is my wont with books of this ilk, I read it slowly, one story at a time over the course of many weeks. The stories steadied my mind nicely before turning in for the night.
Marjorie Pryse, the editor of this selection, chose stories from two collections of short fiction published early in Wilkins'career: A Humble Romance and A New England Nun. In her introduction, Pryse takes issue with the conventional literary assessment of Wilkins and other, also female, "local color" authors, as representing a literary culture in a graceful decline (a "New England: Indian Summer " as Van Wyck Brooks phrases it). Rather Pryse suggests that the burgeoning of women writers telling women's stories at this time should be "a cause for celebration, not lament." I'm inclined to agree, but feel that Mary Wilkins Freeman's consistent focus on elderly, desperately poor women, who are clinging to their last few remaining trappings of dignity undercuts the argument a bit.
As is my wont with books of this ilk, I read it slowly, one story at a time over the course of many weeks. The stories steadied my mind nicely before turning in for the night.
April 4, 2026
Read most of these before. I love Freeman's work.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews